Making Memories Of Us
by SpobyFicStalker
Summary: "She turned to look at him after a moment, and Toby struggled to decipher the look in her eyes. Gratitude, he thought suddenly – gratitude, and awe, and more gratitude." Spencer and Toby. Oneshot.


A/N: I started writing this in January. Yeah. January. Then the shit hit the fan with Spoby on the show and I had to write about that or I would have lost my mind. So I apologize, but this story is now pretty pointless, not to mention AU (at least the way I wanted it to happen). I considered not finishing it but at the end of the day I kind of liked the premise so I pushed through. Maybe we could all pretend it went something like this? I don't know.

Thank you all so much for reviewing my previous story. I'm glad it made you feel better about the whole thing because that was definitely what I was going for. You've made me a happy camper!

* * *

**Making Memories Of Us**

_I'm gonna be here for you from now on_

_This you know somehow_

_You've been stretched to the limits but it's all right now_

_And I'm gonna love you like nobody loves you_

_And I'll earn your trust making memories of us_

_\- Keith Urban_

"Toby, next time you go to London?"

His nose was in her neck and his lips caressed her soft skin and oh God, she smelled so good and he had missed her so much. "Yeah?" he prompted huskily.

"You're taking me with you." She paused. "And we're never coming back."

It made him so happy to hear her say those words – until the implication behind them hit him. Once upon a time he had urged her to call him when she felt like running away. So much had happened since then but he remembered it like it was yesterday, and he realized that was exactly what she was doing now.

He pulled back to look her in the eye, feeling his guts twist when we saw the loneliness in them, the desperation, the hopelessness. He'd never seen her like this before. It was as if she was slowly giving up the fight.

Later she seemed a little bit more relaxed, a little more content, but still vastly uncommunicative when he pushed for the reasoning behind her evasive behavior. She lay with her back to him, and even though she welcomed his body as it covered her from behind it did nothing to give him any insight as to what had her in such a melancholy mood.

Eventually he let it be. His girlfriend was not someone who reacted well to being grilled, and he really didn't feel like fighting with her when all he'd wanted for the past week was to hold her close the way he was now.

He racked his brain for other ways to make it better.

"Someday we'll go to London," he finally promised. "Just you and me."

Irrationally, he had hoped that this would fix everything. It would make her smile, and she would forget her worries and laugh and kiss him. She did none of those things, and his heart sank.

But then she reached for the hand resting on her hip, using it to tug him more firmly around her. She linked their fingers together and held their conjoined hands against her chest, and Toby thought that maybe his words had meant something to her after all.

* * *

None of the graduates rocked a cap and gown like Spencer did, but then again, that was Toby's probably very biased opinion.

He caught her elbow as she turned to follow her friends. "You got a minute?"

She looked from him to the girls to him again, then nodded and yelled for Hanna to save her a seat at the ceremony.

"What's up?" she asked as he led her to a bench in the courtyard.

They sat down next to each other and when Toby looked at her she saw the sun reflected in her eyes, giving her chocolate colored irises a goldish hue, and he found his heart was suddenly beating in his throat.

"What is it?" Spencer repeated, and he reached for her hands.

"Happy Graduation," he told her. "I'm so proud of you."

And he meant it. She had been to hell and back this year, she had been pushed to the limits of her sanity more times than he could count and she had shed more tears than he could stand to think about. On top of that she had been everyone's rock throughout the entire ordeal, including his own, and yet here she was in her cap and gown, calm and smiling and beautiful, about to graduate high school at the top of her class.

She looked touched at his words. "Thanks."

"I got you something." He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, his fingers quickly finding what they were looking for.

For weeks, he had tortured himself trying to come up with the perfect graduation present. He knew he could always use some of Radley's hush money to buy her an expensive piece of jewelry, but that had never been their style and ultimately just didn't feel right. They typically got each other gifts of sentiment and meaning, and after the stunning engraved watch she'd gotten him when he graduated from the police academy he felt he could not let her down.

He handed the gift over to her and she looked at him curiously. Her confusion was apparent, and he could only smile as she stared down at the single envelope in her hands.

"Open it," he urged her, and it did not escape him that their roles from the day she gave him the watch were now completely reversed.

He was tense with anticipation as her dainty fingers tore open the envelope and pulled out two rectangular pieces of cardboard paper. He watched her face transform from puzzlement to disbelief to a hesitant kind of excitement.

"Are you serious?" she was all she asked, and he could only nod.

"We leave on July 19th. Back on the 30th. The hotel's booked and everything."

And before he knew it she was laughing and hugging him. He chuckled and squeezed her back, thinking that the planning he'd done and the money he'd spent was already worth it.

"Wait," she suddenly said, pulling away and looking distressed. "My parents will never allow this. They're never going to let me–"

"Spencer," he interrupted. "I spoke with your mom before I did anything else. She talked to your dad. They're both on board."

He still had no idea what her mother had said to her father to make him agree to letting his youngest daughter go on a vacation abroad with her boyfriend, especially now that the two were living apart and not on great terms, but he wasn't going to complain. When it came to the Hastings parents, he was a firm believer in letting sleeping dogs lie.

Spencer was looking at him in awe now. "You thought of everything, didn't you? You listen to everything I say, and you do everything you promise."

He didn't have time to get a word in before she framed his face in her hands and kissed him so passionately that it made his toes curl.

"Thank you so much, Toby," she murmured before kissing him again. "I don't even know what to say."

He smiled, tilting her chin so her moist eyes would meet his. "Just say, 'we're going to London.'"

Her face broke into a full-fledged, happy grin, and she dutifully repeated, "We're going to London."

* * *

"Oh my God, it's perfect."

Granted, it wasn't very big, but as Spencer pulled the curtains all the way open the room's true vices became glaringly obvious. Before their eyes was the most breathtaking view of London imaginable.

She turned to look at him after a moment, and Toby struggled to decipher the look in her eyes. Gratitude, he thought suddenly – gratitude, and awe, and more gratitude. But before he had the chance to dwell on it she flew towards him. She tackled him and had him pinned to the bed with her tongue down his throat before he knew it.

He quickly recovered and took charge, rolling them over so he was top and letting his hands slide down her thin but muscled body.

"Spencer," he groaned as her fingers were already slithering under his shirt to push it up. "How can you even think about this when we haven't gotten any sleep in–"

She cut him off with another searing kiss. "Save it, Toby. We're not sleeping in this bed until we've christened it. Now take your clothes off."

He couldn't help but laugh, knowing her words came from a place of delirious exhaustion. In true Spencer fashion, she hadn't wanted to waste any time upon arriving at Heathrow Airport earlier today. By this point they'd been traveling for almost a whole day and night, but Spencer would not hear of checking into the hotel first and maybe getting a nap in. Instead, they had shoved their suitcases inside a locker at some train station and explored the city until it went dark.

Toby had fully intended to walk inside the hotel room and sleep for a hundred hours before he did anything else, but apparently Spencer had other plans.

Afterwards, they lay in a tangled, worn out, sweaty heap; and Toby could feel his eyelids growing heavy. Spencer, however, still seemed to be functioning on adrenaline. Her eyes still sparkled and she would still excitedly mention random things about their day while he struggled to keep up.

"Toby!" She nudged him, obviously waiting for a response to some question she'd asked in her buzz of elation.

"Spence, I'm sorry but… cantkeepmyeyesopen…"

"Fine." She titled her face upwards so she could whisper in his ear. "You're dozing, which means I win."

He let out a laugh, or a groan – he wasn't sure. His eyes seemed to permanently be sealed shut, so he blindly tried to ease her into their customary sleeping position.

She wouldn't budge. Her fingers explored his face, and he felt her press a kiss against his nose and then his mouth. "Sweet dreams, my love," she murmured. "I'm so happy to be here with you."

This gave him the strength to open his loaded eyelids one more time, and he gave her a lazy smile. "I can tell. Now can we please, _please_ get some sleep?"

She laughed at his puppy dog look and turned around, pushing her back into his chest and sighing as he wrapped his naked body around hers in a way that had become instinctive.

Peace settled over them like a blanket, and they slept.

* * *

Toby wasn't sure he'd ever loved Spencer quite as much as he did right now in this very moment.

She was wearing a black robe and a pointy hat, trying to balance a glass of Butterbeer, a bag of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans and another one of Chocolate Frogs in one hand while she attempted to stash away her newly purchased wand with her other.

Toby would offer to help, but she just looked so adorable that it would make much more sense to take a picture while she wasn't looking. No one did the Harry Potter thing better than Spencer Hastings.

"My elementary school self would be _freaking_ _out_ over this," she was telling him. "I was Hermione for Halloween three years in a row, you know."

"I know," he teased. "That's the fourth time you told me that since we got here."

She swatted him with her wand, which made him chuckle and take a quick step back. Noting she was still occupied, he seized his chance and quickly snapped a shot of her with his phone.

"Hey!"

He laughed, then tapped his screen to make the picture show up. Spencer came to look at it over his shoulder, groaning reflexively at what she saw.

"Toby," she said calmly. "If you ever show that picture to another human being, I will skin you alive."

He grinned and put his phone back in his pocket, curling an arm around her waist. "I think you look sexy."

She rolled her eyes and he kissed her neck. "I'm serious," he mumbled into her skin. "You're the prettiest witch I've ever seen, and I would know since I happen to have recently re-watched all the Harry Potter movies."

It had been part of their preparation for their trip back in Rosewood. Spencer had also made him read the last three Harry Potter books, since he'd never gotten around to them as a kid. When he protested that he'd seen the movies and already knew what happened, she haughtily informed him that she could not possibly go on the Harry Potter Warner Bros. Studio Tour in London with someone who hadn't read the entire series.

They'd only been in London for five days, but already they'd seen more of it than Toby had when he'd come here on his own a few months ago (granted, his heart hadn't exactly been in it at the time, but that was another story altogether). They'd visited the British Museum, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, Tate Modern and quite a few less popular, less touristy places. Spencer had been in high spirits for all of it, but the twinkle in her eye had never been as bright as it was now.

Hogwarts and Diagon Alley – that was where she was most at home.

"Come on," she said, tugging at his hand. He noticed she finally seemed to have successfully dropped her wand and the candy somewhere in the pockets of her robe.

"Where are we going?" he demanded as he followed her through the crowd.

"I still need postcards for the girls and my mom," she explained. "This is as good a place as any to buy them, right?"

He shook in head in amusement and trailed behind her as she led the way.

* * *

"Well, what do you want me to do?" she demanded angrily, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Call my sister and tell her he can't come?"

Toby grinded his teeth together but kept his mouth shut. That was exactly what he wanted her to do, if he was honest with himself. It was the best idea he'd heard all day, but he was savvy enough to know that down the line it would only make things worse.

When she realized he wasn't going to answer she sighed and came closer, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Toby… Why do you let him wind you up like that? What is it about him that gets you so…?"

He squared his jaw and tried to form a coherent thought. Part of him felt terrible about being so difficult about this. He knew Spencer wouldn't come all the way to London without seeing her sister at least once. On top of that, she seemed uncharacteristically optimistic about their dinner with Melissa, almost as if she hoped the emotional distance between them would lessen while they were both away from Rosewood and away from the parents that had, whether they meant to or not, always set them up against each other.

He didn't know why they had both let themselves be caught off guard when Melissa emailed this morning with the final details, ending the message that she and Wren were looking forward to seeing them tonight. He never thought Melissa would want her boyfriend and sister in the same room with their history, but apparently the woman was intent on forgetting the whole thing ever happened.

"I don't like how he acts like you're still his," Toby finally mumbled, feeling irrational even as the words left his mouth.

"I was never his," she argued. "Never at any point in my life was I ever his."

"I don't like the way he looks at you," he blurted out. "I don't like the way he talks to you. Like he's trying to charm you into…"

"He's not going to try anything with Melissa there," she cut him off exasperatedly. "He's not stupid, and I'm assuming he values his life."

Again, Toby didn't respond much. He knew he wasn't making this any easier on her, but Spencer slowly came to sit down next to him on the bed anyway. "And besides, even if he did try something it's not like I'd let it go anywhere."

This made him look at her, and when he saw the honesty in her exquisite brown eyes he felt like the biggest asshole on the planet.

"I'm sorry," he told her gruffly, reaching out to curl an arm around her back. "I know you wouldn't, but I just…" He shook his head and took a deep breath. "I know you wouldn't."

He felt like she should still be furious or at least annoyed with him for making a big deal out of something that suddenly seemed glaringly unimportant, but she just smiled. Her hand came to gently grasp the hair at the back of his head as she observed, "We're getting better at this fighting thing."

It shouldn't have made him chuckle but it did and he nodded ruefully. Then he saw something in her face change. He saw that familiar mischief cloud her eyes, and it drove him wild. She let one had slide up his chest and curled it around his neck before her lips connected with skin at his jaw.

"You sure you don't need more convincing?" she murmured huskily before kissing his flesh again.

Toby would love nothing more than to have her physically convince him, but it was also extremely satisfying to tease her a little. "I thought you wanted to see Westminster Abbey today? And the Westminster Museum and the–"

"Oh come on, just a quickie." She had already crawled in his lap and was now unashamedly straddling him.

"We suck at quickies, Spence," he humorously stated the obvious, referring to their elaborate post-sex cuddles.

"Well then you'd better get a move on. Come on," she urged him naughtily. "Claim your territory."

He turned and dropped her to the bed, delighting in her carefree laughter as his lips dove for her neck. Later, when they were both naked and their breath was labored and he was inside her and surrounded by her at the same time, she whispered in his ear, "If he says something tonight that makes you mad… just think of this. This moment right here."

She sealed the deal with a kiss.

* * *

In preparation for their trip, both he and Spencer had done extensive research on what sights they wanted to see, what the cheapest and most convenient way to travel was and which restaurants they wanted to eat at. But Toby long knew that his girlfriend had one of those insane brains that noticed and remembered the smallest, most bizarre details that normal people barely even picked up on.

"Did you know that an average of 201,000 people pass through Heathrow Airport each day?" she asked him.

She didn't sound particularly intrigued by this piece of information. In fact, she sounded downright bored by it. Toby couldn't blame her. It was almost 3 a.m. and they had been stranded in these chairs waiting for takeoff for close to five hours now.

"I did not know that," he replied, readjusting his hold on her. The airport chairs were awfully uncomfortable, but somehow they'd found a position they both could live with where she leaned against his chest and he had his arms wrapped around her.

"Looks like you got your wish, huh?" he joked a minute later. "You complained all day that you didn't want to go home and now look at us. Stuck in London because of some stupid fog."

She gave him a pointed look. "This was not what I had in mind and you know it."

He chuckled because he did know. She wanted more days of just the two of them discovering the nooks and crannies of a foreign city, where no one interrupted or distracted them and their biggest scuffle had ended in hot, passionate sex. He smiled when he thought back to all those cherished moments, and Spencer must have been thinking along the same lines because she reached for her phone and started thumbing through the nearly 500 pictures they had taken.

He watched her as she flipped through them, adoring the way her face lit up at each memory. Every so often a photo would trigger a small impression in her that she'd forgotten already, and she would say something like, "Oh remember, that woman wearing the red sweater gave us complete wrong directions and we ended up on the wrong train? I wonder if she ever realized it…"

Toby honestly couldn't keep his eyes off her, and he had no idea how many pictures had passed when she said nostalgically, "Oh and this one, when we went to see Wicked! It rained a little that night, remember? You let me borrow your–"

Her voice stopped when she looked up at him and noticed he wasn't looking at the photo even a little bit.

"Hey! You're not paying attention," she sulked.

He had to bite back his laughter at her pout and tightened his arms around her. "I _am_ paying attention," he corrected her, "but why would I look at pictures of you when I can look at the real thing?"

She closed her mouth, looking dumbstruck, and Toby inwardly cheered. He was a hobby of his to render her speechless. Finally, she tried to hide her tickled embarrassment by muttering, "You're full of crap."

He snickered and kissed her head. Then he went serious and said quietly, "We'll make new memories, Spencer. Memories don't just happen in memorable places. They happen everywhere. Like right now, we're making a memory. A few days from now I'm pretty sure you'll be gushing about how great it was to be stranded at an airport in the middle of the night."

She laughed now and threw her phone to the side. "I guess we'd better make it unforgettable then," she rasped in that low, sexy voice that made his heart beat faster.

She moved her hand to the back of his head and guided his mouth down to hers. It was dark, everyone around them was sleeping anyway, and Toby figured they were still allowed to act like teenagers if even neither of them had felt like one in a long time.

They were still all over each other a while later when the intercom announced that the fog had lifted and flight BA4101 from London, England to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA had been cleared to start boarding.

"No!" Spencer said in dismay. "We're not done making our memory!"

He laughed when he realized she was actually serious. "The plane has more comfortable chairs," he pleaded. "And blankets. And food."

He grabbed both their carry-on bags and held his hand out to her. She slipped her smaller one in his, and together they started their journey home.


End file.
